Page 138 of Her Reluctant Hero
Chapter Nine
Yep, the bad old days. Mallory’s last time to drive a stick shift was when Jonathan was shopping for a BMW Roadster. The linkage had been much tighter than in this old Land Cruiser. Calisthenics were required every time she shifted. With the state of the roads, she couldn’t get above third anyway, especially without jouncing Adrian about. She couldn’t even hope that he might fall asleep, since every time he bounced in his seat, he sucked in a breath through his teeth.
The tension in the car stretched as the miles passed slowly.
“How’s the book coming?” she asked, too loud, and they both jumped.
He chuckled. “It’s not.”
Was he laughing at her skittishness or her question? “You never were particularly patient when it came to things where you had to sit down.” He had barely been able to sleep inside their little house in Pensacola. One would have thought she’d put him in a cage, the way the house vibrated with his restless energy. He’d signed on for the first dig that came along. Her choice had been between being left behind in her little house and going with him. She’d gone, abandoning her house, her dream. That time. “You must have been pretty desperate for the money to agree to write a whole book.”
“Once I knew what I’d found, I had to.”
“If you announce this find, you’ll get all the funding you need for excavation.”
He grunted, and her stomach clenched. “I’m not announcing until I find the box and it’s safe. I don’t want anyone else to get their hands on it.”
“Anyone else meaning Valentine Smoller.”
“He has the other three boxes and if he knew I was after this one, he’d be all over it.”
“Why? Just to foil you? He doesn’t hate you, Adrian.” Gears ground as she pulled the Land Cruiser into second.
“That’s what he told you. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. He wants the boxes. That’s why he partnered with me in Tunisia.”
She’d spent time with Valentine after the Tunisia disaster, when Adrian had been so driven to find the box. Mallory had found Valentine nothing but supportive. “But why do you think he wants the boxes?”
“Aside from the fact that they’re priceless on their own? Clearly Theophilius believed they needed to be separated. Smoller believes they need to be reunited, for whatever reason.”
“That’s only a myth. How many myths have we heard in our lifetimes?”
“They’re what drives us, these myths, finding out how true they are.”
Stubborn Scot. “But it won’t get us funding to get more divers. Only facts will do that, and we have to stick with that. We’re scientists, Adrian.”
“More divers means more chances for a leak.” Frustration tinged his voice. “That’s why I have Toney and Robert. I know I can trust them. And I checked out Linda and Jacob before I brought them on.”
“And me?”
He turned so his back was against the passenger door. He considered her a moment before he said, “I trust you the most.”
His words staggered her to silence. He observed the effect of his words, then turned to the jungle.
After everything, the hurtful words, the accusations, the ultimatums, he trusted her? She fought the tears of loss that burned her eyes. She couldn’t let him see her cry.
“The publisher,” she said after making certain her voice wouldn’t crack, and she chanced a look sideways. “You trust them as well?”
He lifted an eyebrow as if he would be that stupid. “Of course not. They think I’m diving off the coast of Africa.”
“Are you sure we’re going the right direction?” Mallory asked a short time later, battling through low-hanging vines and a road barely wide enough for a bicycle, much less a full-sized SUV. “I have no desire to be stranded and live on a diet of Spam.”
He grinned, looking up from the map jostling on his lap. “It’s a wonder you came back to archaeology, then.”
She tightened her grip on the wheel. “It certainly was easy to get used to hot water and refrigeration.”
“And diamonds the size of my eyeball.”
She gritted her teeth at the comment he’d made under his breath. “I wasn’t marrying him for money. I thought we’d decided to leave the past in the past.”
